Nonprofits are continuously presented with opportunities to engage with constituents – partners, volunteers, advocates, donors, the beneficiaries of the mission and more. While some organizations rise to the challenge and provide a rich engagement experience to those seeking to connect, other times organizations miss an opportunity to meet constituents with the right type of engagement at the right time. Those missed opportunities can translate to loss of connection, loss of dollars, loss of goodwill and loss of motivation to do more with the organization. To help nonprofits understand the impact this can have, Heller has created the paper Taking Engagement Seriously to explain how to develop an Engagement Strategy, and clarify how it can influence how your organization approaches all of your constituent engagement efforts.

Project Open Hand was created as an effort to fight the AIDS epidemic in 1985. Since then, it has grown into an incredible organization that serves the Bay Area’s most vulnerable citizens who are fighting serious illness, isolation, and the challenges associated with old age. Today, Project Open Hand has over 100 volunteers and delivers more than 2,500 meals and 200 bags of groceries every single day.

For some time, Project Open Hand was using multiple, disconnected systems to manage interactions with clients, volunteers, and donors, but none of them were meeting their needs. Each system had issues: lack of basic functions, inability to create necessary reports, limited/no technical support, etc. These problems were not only creating unnecessary delays and challenges, but were also roadblocks, preventing Project Open Hand from truly understanding critical connections between donors and volunteers.

By working together, Heller Consulting and Project Open Hand came up with a strategic implementation plan to smoothly transition Project Open Hand onto a single, cohesive system, and to streamline and optimize the inter-related aspects of the organization’s business processes. Visit the Salesforce Foundation project overview here.

For more information on this project, head over to Heller Consulting’s website to download the full case study!

NGO Connect (formerly known as roundCause) was developed as an application that specializes in addressing sophisticated, multi-channel fundraising management needs for larger organizations without compromising the native strengths and innovations of Salesforce. In general, NGO Connect offers more complex functionality than the Nonprofit Starter Pack, and also offers additional features in areas such as events and grants management that the NPSP does not include. Also unlike NPSP, there is a per-license annual cost associated with NGO Connect. Already unmistakably powerful, the NGO Connect roadmap features many updates that will continue to improve usability for fundraising staff. Heller Consulting released a white paper describing the basic features of NGO Connect. Today we will be reviewing Demographics in NGO Connect.

Next week, the Salesforce Connections Conference is coming to New York City. As one of the largest digital marketing events of the year, Salesforce Connections is an excellent opportunity to experience the new era of marketing up close and personal! It’s not easy to keep up with the tools and techniques that successful nonprofits are using for effective communication today. That is why the Salesforce Connections Conference is an event you cannot miss! Each day is packed with breakout sessions, product tutorials, and presentations from marketing experts like Seth Myers, Diane Von Furstenberg, Mike Krzyzewski, and many more. Learn from these brilliant marketing minds while networking with other nonprofits like you to hear what brought them the most success in 2014. Registration is free, so sign up today!

If you need a guide for the nonprofit sessions and events, Heller Consulting’s team of experts will be on hand and ready to answer your questions. Contact them now to reserve a time to talk.

Advancement Connect has surpassed the Nonprofit Starter Pack and traditional advancement applications to become the long-awaited “next generation” solution that eliminates data silos, provides the coveted “360-degree view” of constituents, and drives increased engagement and fundraising. As a top choice for higher education institutions, Salesforce has a combination of unparalleled success of the CRM platform. When you’re ready to make the move to Salesforce and Advancement Connect, there are a number of things we want to make sure you’re ready to take advantage of, ten of which are listed in Heller Consulting’s white paper, Salesforce’s Connected Campus and Advancement Connect. Over the past few months, we’ve gone over Ease of Access and Viewing. In this post we will cover Giving Summaries.